France film school
1962
bw min.
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
CLV: $29.95 - taking pre-orders now
1 disc, catalog # CC1496L
Vivre sa vie, made in 1962, was the fourth of Jean-Luc Godard's films. He had so far
turned out a gangster-movie knockoff (Breathless), a dark political picture
(Le Petit Soldat), and a sort-of musical comedy (Une Femme est une femme). Now
he was going for the exposé. His source was a journalistic account of prostitution in
France, and in this as in so many matters he was self-consciously echoing the American
directors he admired, such as Samuel Fuller, whose Underworld U.S.A. (1960) was based on
a series of articles in the Saturday Evening Post. Like Fuller, too, he didn't exactly
limit himself to a literal adaptation of his source material.
To watch Vivre sa vie, as with any of Godard's early pictures, or indeed any of the films
of the period by his fellow New Wavers, is to witness the sheer joy of movie-making. A bunch
of former critics, who for years had been watching with their noses pressed to the glass,
were now cut loose to put all their pent-up theory into practice. They could take up where
their favorite directors had left off, going them one better in daring, immediacy, improvisation,
and passion. Every film is like a riposte in a cutting contest between jazz players, and
Vivre sa vie is no exception.
Godard hangs his dare out right away, opening with a lengthy scene between Nana (Anna Karina)
and her former husband (André Barthe), in which the two converse with their backs to the
camera. A rule is broken, yes indeed, but it's not arbitrary -- their poses immediately tell us
most of what we need to know about the ruin of their relationship. Nana, whose name alludes to
Zola's character and more importantly to Jean Renoir's adaptation, has theatrical ambitions,
is always short of money, wants to live intensely. So, accidentally on purpose, she becomes
a prostitute. Her story is divided into twelve tableaux, with intertitles like chapter headings.
Breaking up the story this way provides the requisite Brechtian distance, but it also follows
function. Her life is in fact a series of apparently random turns, what-the-hell decisions that
nevertheless add up, point her doomward. The structure throws you the keys. You fill in the rest.
The end is shocking, but by the time you get there it is inevitable.
The story, grim as it is, is in some ways an excuse, contrived to allow for a maximum of
large and incidental pleasures. Foremost is Anna Karina herself, one of the most beautiful
and seductive actresses in the whole history of the movies. You get to see her express moods
from A to Z, and also to fling herself around a barroom in a wild dance convincingly made up
on the spot. There is also Paris, many bleak but eloquent corners of it that don't look like
that anymore. Along the way there is literature (mostly Poe's "The Oval Portrait"), philosophy
(a Socratic dialogue with Brice Parain), music (an effective, minimal score by Michel Legrand),
and, of course, photography, through the great cinematographer Raoul Coutard's brilliantly
graphic eye. Godard claimed that this was the first movie in which he dispensed with shot
composition, just set up quickly and called action. You'll wonder why more directors don't
try that.
-- Luc Sante
Luc Sante is the author of Low Life, Evidence, and the Factory of Facts.
Cast
Nana: Anna Karina
Raoul: Saddy Rebbot
Paul: André Labarthe
Yvette: G. Schlumberger
Cook: Gérard Hoffman
Elisabeth: Monique Messine
The journalist: Paul Pavel
The "guy": Dimitri Dineff
The young man: Peter Kassovitz
Luigi: E. Schlumberger
The philosopher: Brice Parain
Arthur: Henri Atal
Credits
Written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard
Produced by P. Braunberger
Cinematography: Raoul Coutard
Editing: Agnès Guillemot
Sound recording: Guy Villette
Music by: Michel Legrand
Publicity: Georges Cravenne
Transfer
Vivre sa vie is presented in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.33:1. This
transfer was created from a composite 35mm fine-grain master.
Index of Films
Buy CLV |
View Items |
Checkout
Ordering Information |
Criterion |
Home Vision
|
|
|
